frostwyrm

.573 OPS for the $136M bionic man.

Gold Glove SS was before Tommy John surgery. That guy is probably gone.

Izzy sucks, but in my mind the real goat so far is the $136M man with the .590 OPS.

Don't worry about Izzy, the cold Chicago weather is going to make him tweak his back or a hammy soon and put him on the DL.

I don't see how people can acknowledge that relievers are fickle but still say Howry was a good signing. He's only completed one year in a 3 year deal. He's still too expensive for his role and he could easily suck this year and the next. He was actually one of the players I would have liked to have seen traded last July while his value was high. He would have netted a good haul and we would have cleared a big contract from the books.

I have no problem with giving Miller 2 more starts to show something. I agree with the people who say that if you give a guy a spot in the rotation you shouldn't yank him after one bad game. I advocated a short leash on Miller but one game is too short.

Eyre allowed a .799 OPS. That's terrible for $3.8M. Howry was quite good but he's only one third of the way through his contract. That's the problem with signing the relief "flavor of the week". To get the guy you end up having to make a multi-year committment to a class of player that is notoriously inconsistent from one year to the next. Maybe this year the pendulum swings downwards, but we still have to pay him. And how many relievers are really worth $4M? Pitching is 35% of the game, and relief pitching is only 30% of pitching. It's really not a big component of the overall game compared to other stuff. You pay a hefty opportunity cost carrying a bunch of expensive relievers as the Cubs do, in terms of lost resources to upgrade more important areas.

It's highly questionable whether any GM should be throwing big money at relief pitching, but not for Jim Hendry. His track record with big relief contracts is terrible. For every somewhat well-spent dollar there's been two or three completely wasted. Hendry has no business giving out these types of deals and the Trib should tell him he's not allowed to do it anymore.

I don't think the Cubs should be looking at Santana. He's an FA after 2008, and 2009 is the year we have a bad money crunch. We have $72M committed to 6 players in 2009, and that's before Z signs. If you add in Santana it would become difficult to even put a whole baseball team on the field for less than $140M. 2010 isn't good either with Z on the payroll. To get Santana the great bulk of the money would have to be backloaded unto 2011 and later. Then you'd have Fonz, Aramis and Santana sucking up about $55M in 2011. Will Aramis even be still be a viable NL player in 2011? How good will Fonz still be?

Barett's not going anywhere this season, nor should he. I wanted a rebuilding year in which Barrett and Z were traded for players who could help in 2008, but it's way too late for that, thanks to Hendry's spending spree. Keeping Barret is the best option for a team that's built to win now.

Ha ha, I mention Juan Pierre and someone gets caught stealing. I'm going to have to try that again.

If it's any consolation Juan Pierre has started even worse. Through 5 games he has a .325 OPS.

I'm hoping this is just because Izzy, like it or not, has been pretty decent so far. I doubt this is a long term lineup. Yeah, I hope Lou's attitude is he's just going with the hot hand, because that the only semi-coherent reason I can think of for putting such a low career OBP in front of a team's two best HR hitters.

Even a chronically overoptimistic org like the Cubs can't put a positive spin on this situation. Only sorta positive thing to say is Kerry wasn't being counted on for anything this year, so his non-contribution isn't a big deal.

What if Z suffers a catastrophic injury before he signs? I really doubt the Trib would still give him 5/80. If I'm Z and the Trib tells me I must wait til mid-season before signing I wouldn't do it. I'd gamble that I could complete the 2nd half without injury and then go to free agency for a much bigger payday than $80M. Simple risk/reward math dictates that the longer this situation drags out the more attractive it will become for Z to take the health risk of playing out the season without a contract. Obviously if Z has made 34 starts and has 1 more to go it would be silly not to risk pitching one game and then filing for free agency. Hard to say where the tipping point would be. Depends on the risk aversion of the individual in question. 20 starts maybe? Then he would just have to gamble on going 15 starts without getting hurt.

What I'm wondering is what happens mid-season if the Cubs are in the hunt and need one piece of the puzzle at the trade deadline. For example, what happens if DLee gets injured on July 15th and they need a big bat to stay in the race? Could they afford to take on another big salary, or would they just have to put Daryle Ward at 1B every day and hope for the best?

Anyone who buys the Cubs will be A) A Cubs fan B) Someone who wants the Cubs because they are profitable No prospective owner will care whether Soriano's OBP slips. If anything, he is a benefit because he is one of the most marketable, popular players in the league and will most likely remain so for the next few years. Soriano's popularity will disappear very quickly if he can't hack it in CF and puts up an OPS slightly above .800, as he did in TX for the 2 years before 2006. Then he'll be a barely above average corner OF who's owed another $126 mil. That's not something a buyer would consider attractive. Let's get real. A bad year from Soriano isn't going to deter people from buying the Cubs. Of course not, but it would put a big dent in the sale price of the club. Current projections of the Cubs' price don't include a player who looks like a $126M bust.

Anyone who buys the Cubs will be A) A Cubs fan B) Someone who wants the Cubs because they are profitable No prospective owner will care whether Soriano's OBP slips. If anything, he is a benefit because he is one of the most marketable, popular players in the league and will most likely remain so for the next few years. Soriano's popularity will disappear very quickly if he can't hack it in CF and puts up an OPS slightly above .800, as he did in TX for the 2 years before 2006. Then he'll be a barely above average corner OF who's owed another $126 mil. That's not something a buyer would consider attractive.

But the $300 million in debt is spread over many years. The fact remains that our payroll is very reasonable for a big market team. Why would this be bad? If people are willing to spend upwards of $600 - 1 billion, I hardly think a 100-110 million dollar payroll would matter... Actually I would disagree that the $300M is a debt. What it actually is, is a liability. But the fact is that this franchise's assets more than make up for all the liabilities put together and so the Cubs as a franchise is most definitely NOT in DEBT. This team easily earns more than it spends every year even with a big market payroll and that is what any potential buyer/owner will look at. Yeah I'm aware the team is a profitable business. That's why people want to buy it. That $300M is definitely a debt though. Those are guaranteed contracts and those players will be paid that money, and I don't think most of these contracts could be moved without eating a large chunk of their value. I don't want to turn this into a Soriano-bashing thread but his contract alone would be enough to make me reduce my offer for the Cubs, since I believe it will become one of the great stinkbombs in the history of pro sports. The Trib better hope Soriano has a good year, because if he gets shifted to a corner OF spot and regresses to his TX numbers it will have a bad effect on the ultimate sale price of the team. So are players under contract not considered an asset? If they are paid top dollar for what they contribute then no, they are not an asset. The Cubs roster is really rather bad for its price.

But the $300 million in debt is spread over many years. The fact remains that our payroll is very reasonable for a big market team. Why would this be bad? If people are willing to spend upwards of $600 - 1 billion, I hardly think a 100-110 million dollar payroll would matter... Actually I would disagree that the $300M is a debt. What it actually is, is a liability. But the fact is that this franchise's assets more than make up for all the liabilities put together and so the Cubs as a franchise is most definitely NOT in DEBT. This team easily earns more than it spends every year even with a big market payroll and that is what any potential buyer/owner will look at. Yeah I'm aware the team is a profitable business. That's why people want to buy it. That $300M is definitely a debt though. Those are guaranteed contracts and those players will be paid that money, and I don't think most of these contracts could be moved without eating a large chunk of their value. I don't want to turn this into a Soriano-bashing thread but his contract alone would be enough to make me reduce my offer for the Cubs, since I believe it will become one of the great stinkbombs in the history of pro sports. The Trib better hope Soriano has a good year, because if he gets shifted to a corner OF spot and regresses to his TX numbers it will have a bad effect on the ultimate sale price of the team.

But the $300 million in debt is spread over many years. The fact remains that our payroll is very reasonable for a big market team. Why would this be bad? If people are willing to spend upwards of $600 - 1 billion, I hardly think a 100-110 million dollar payroll would matter... 100-110 mil. is still a very big payroll for an MLB team, and really it won't be enough to to field a contender in 2008 and especially 2009, assuming Z eventually gets signed. It'll take at least $125M to make a repectable attempt at contention in 2009, and very likely a good deal more than $125M. If I'm a prospective buyer that's the type of crap that would make me walk the asking price down, not up.

I still haven't heard a convincing explantion for how all these big contracts Hendry just gave out are supposed to increase the value of the team. They have A) created $300 mil in debt for the organization B) placed the Cubs in the position of needing to maintain one of the largest payrolls in the NL to contend until 2011. If I'm a prospective buyer I can't imagine how these things would make me want to pay more for a team. I can very well imagine them making me want pay less though.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/324220,CST-SPT-cubnt03.article He's not even ready for AAA yet. I don't see how he can bitch about being left off the big league roster. If he kicks ass in Iowa then he can bitch, til then he should keep his mouth shut.

Sounds bad. McDonough says “Jim and I need to dialogue a little bit more." What is there to discuss? The situation is perfectly clear. The Cubs are fully committed to a win-now strategy. Z is essential to that strategy. If money is available you offer it and hope Z accepts. It's just that simple. The time to debate whether to re-sign Z was before committing $300M in backloaded contracts.

No econ background here, but I'll tell you how I understand it. Corporately, debt is bad. However, it's bad debt that's "really bad". Debt accrued for things that are guaranteed to fail, or already have, like if we owed Sammy Sosa $11million a year, in deferred money for the next 5 years, or owed $400mil on a stadium that always sat empty. The Cubs have increased their costs for future years, by signing all these guys to contracts, however, by signing (at least some) of these players they are increasing their likelihood of a very solid return on that investment. Individually, there may be some really bad promises of payment in that mix, but overall, the return on the investment (no matter how poor part of it might be) will be worth the cost. That's at least how I understand it. I still don't get it. Hendry did nothing to maximize bang for the buck on these deals. He paid top dollar for every ounce of improvement he made to the overall talent level of the club. I don't understand how that should increase the value of the team. The Cubs have certainly gotten better, but they took on a gazillion dollars of debt to get that way. If Hendry had made some great moves that improved the team's talent level without incurring a ton of debt then I can see how that would have increased the value of the team, but that's not what happened.